Staff from a Flintshire high school's English department welcomed new Year 7 students to their classes with free books as an incentive to develop a passion for reading as they begin their high school years.
The Flint High students were able to select a book of their choice as part of The Books Council of Wales' Schools Love Reading initiative which will see all students aged three to 16 in state schools in Wales receive a book of their own to keep. The programme is supported by the Welsh Government and its ambition is to inspire a lifelong love of reading and help everyone find the right book for them.
Each student received a token to the value of £7 to exchange for a book and all the books were provided by Caroline Johnson at The Mold Bookshop. The students were able to select their book during English lessons with teachers on hand to assist if needed.
Three Flint High Year 7 students with their new books, from left: Kian Francis, Seren Thompson, and Amelija Gusarova.
Nicola Paulson, literacy coordinator, planned the school's participation in the project and has overseen the selection of books by students from all other year groups last term.
She said: "The Schools Love Reading programme is a fantastic initiative and was a perfect way to round off all the literacy competitions and projects we ran last year, and it's great that our new Year 7 students have been able to benefit from the project too with our remaining tokens.
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"Caroline has worked with us on many of our literacy projects and she brought in a fantastic variety of books for our Year 7 students which we displayed in one of our English classrooms."
Mrs Johnson said: "The enthusiasm of the children for the books has been wonderful to see. Many children do not have access to books, so the voucher scheme is an excellent way to give them a free book and to encourage reading."
Year 7 students select their books. From left: Fearne Conway, Eva Jones, Oliver Holbrook, Maddox Dakin, Evie Harmes, Chelsea Collo, and Neveah Byles.
As part of the school's literacy drive, the English department sourced a book vending machine last term as a novel way of rewarding students for their achievements. Successful students are given a token by Mrs Paulson to access the machine and select a book of their choice.
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Mrs Paulson added: "The vending machine has been a huge success and has definitely sparked more 'book talk' amongst students. It has proved to be an exciting and successful way for us to reward readers for great work across a variety of reading related programmes, competitions and other initiatives linked to reading.
"We want to encourage our new Year 7 students to share in our love of reading here at Flint High and hope that receiving a free book will be the start of that journey."
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